Cristina Leiria was born in Lisbon on April 25, 1946, and lived in Mozambique between the ages of 2 and 17. She graduated in architecture from the School of Fine Arts in Lisbon and specialized in Planning at University College London. Motivated by the influence of the environment on health and well-being, she deepened her studies on Feng Shui in Macau, China, and Japan, and on Electromagnetism in France.

She worked as an architect in the United Kingdom, Mozambique, Rhodesia, South Africa, Portugal, and Macau. From 1992 onwards, and in parallel with architecture, she resumed sculpture, which she had begun in her adolescence, with the creation of prototypes for "Elan de Mãe" and "Família Holística," which have already been reproduced in crystal by Vista Alegre. Many of these sculptures are conceived from clay and later converted to other scales, in various materials, including, in addition to crystal, bronze, silver, tin, and stone.

Cristina Leiria has also developed important work in humanizing urban spaces, with public art such as the Kun Iam Ecumenical Center, built on an artificial island created for this purpose in the Pearl River, in Macau, where a 20-meter-high bronze statue of the Goddess Kun Iam stands.