One of the first Romanian women-architects and the designer of Romanian railways, Maria Cotescu was born in 1896 in the city of Focșani. During the First World War, her father would become a general of the Romanian army. In 1922, she graduated from the Higher School of Architecture in Bucharest and, alongside six other women, was granted membership at the Romanian Architects Society.

In 1931-33, she designed hostel Cota in the mountain resort town of Sinaia. Between 1933 and 1940, she was employed by the Romanian Railway Company (also known as CFR, or Căile Ferate Române)–the highpoint of her career. The work included designing workshops, office buildings, and factories, including the modernist red-brick Griviţa workshops building, the headquarters of the CFR, a power plant, and administrative buildings. 

After the end of the Second World War she returned to architectural work, designing a student dormitory in 1950. At this time, she also became an architectural theorist, publishing in professional magazines including Arhitectura (Architecture), Revista Simetria (Symmetry Magazine), Revista Tehnica (Technology Magazine), and Buletinul Societatii Politehnice (The Polytechnic Society Bulletin).