Born in Katlenburg-Lindau on 27 December 1955, Sabine Frommel studied architecture at the Fachhochschule and Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf from 1976, obtaining her diploma in architecture in 1982. After studying at the University of Marburg, where she specialised in the history of architecture, she resumed her studies in Paris, thanks to a German government grant, and in 1985 obtained the French diploma of architect (DPLG) by defending a dissertation entitled "Imitation and invention in the work of Percier and Fontaine". She was recruited as a lecturer at the Paris-La Villette School of Architecture in 1985. In 1995, she defended her thesis on the architect Sebastiano Serlio and the Château d'Ancy-le-Franc. Since 2003 she has been director of studies in Renaissance art history at the École Pratique des Hautes Études. She also heads the Histara team (EA 7347). Since 2001, she has been an associate member of the Académie royale de Belgique, in the arts class4. In 2020, she will hold the Louvre Chair on the theme of "Painting architecture during the Italian Renaissance".