“Professor Rocah’s long and deep contributions to the UIC School of Architecture are practically coincident with its entire history,” said the school in a statement. “His high expectations were always a challenge and inspiration for the rest of us, as was his profound encouragement and empathy toward his students, and the sheer enthusiasm he conveyed.”

In 1959, he was a designer for architect Bertrand Goldberg and along with Richard Binfield, Joe Burnett, and other notable personnel, he helped design Marina City.

Projects that Rocah designed by himself include Kedvale Square, a 116-unit apartment building on Karlov Avenue in the North Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago. Built in 1969 for Community Reinvestment Fund, the complex consisted of eight three-story buildings. It was in the middle of an area of extreme poverty and suffered from vandalism, leaky roofs, standing water in courtyards, deteriorating doors, and tenants who could not pay rent.

In 1984, he helped with a project to install murals by Chicago artists at CTA stations, including the Harlem station three stops from O’Hare International Airport. Inside the station is a mural by American artist Alex Katz, who was paid $60,000, the equivalent of $144,000 today. Rocah said it was a bargain.

(Right) Harlem Station, a freestanding cutout mural on the north window of the Harlem CTA station.

“What somebody would have to pay for a 50-foot mural by Alex Katz I can’t begin to guess, but I know it would be a hell of a lot more than $60,000,” he told The New York Times. “The thing is, these artists are all really turned on by the idea of putting their work where it will probably be seen by more people in a year than would have seen it in a museum in 20 years.”

Marina City Online, predecessor of Loop North, last heard from Rocah in August 2010 after he was hit in the head with a baseball bat during a home invasion. He told MCO he was “fine and keeping busy preparing for the courses I’ll be teaching next semester.”

The incident happened on July 6, 2010. Rocah woke around 4:30 a.m. when an intruder tripped an alarm. Minutes later, a man wearing a black “skeleton” mask burst into his bedroom, swinging the bat and hitting Rocah as he reached for the telephone.

He was released from the hospital later that morning. His wife, 80 years old at the time, was not hurt.

(Left) For 48 years, he lived with his wife, Barbara, a psychologist, in this two-story Greystone built in 1887 in the Lake View community north of the Loop. They restored a staircase, sliding doors, small balcony, and large wood-framed mirrors.

He was not universally loved. In a 2015 interview with Iker Gil, Chicago architect Stanley Tigerman, a former director of UIC School of Architecture, called Rocah “one of the major assholes of our time.” He claimed to have given the tenured professor a desk job to keep him from teaching.

Rocah’s funeral was on June 5 at Anshe Emet Synagogue in Chicago. He is interred at Memorial Park Cemetery. In addition to his wife, he leaves two children and three grandchildren.