Spanish engineer. Son of Javier Viñes Solano, lawyer, and of Dolores Roda Vives, amateur pianist. He had two brothers: Ricardo, piano concert artist, and Eugenio, trader. Born in 1869 in Lérida (Spain).

Husband of María Soto Mijango, daughter of Aurelio Marcos Soto, president of Honduras. He had two children: Hernando, painter and Elvira, dancer and teacher. Barcelona's University issued his Baccaulaureate title on 23 June 1885. He belonged to the Cuerpo de Ingenieros Industriales of Spain, and worked for the Compagnie Française of l'Acetyléne Disson of Paris. In the French capital, he married María in 1902. In April of 1903, the press picked up on his success in the sea torch tests he carried out in Barcelona. A year later, on 9 April 1904, he assisted, together with his brother, the concert of Paderewski in the Théâtre du Châtelet of Paris. With his wife and his mother, he went to four concerts that his brother Ricardo offered in the Salle Erard of Paris on April 1905. He met the father Donostia in 1920, and assisted on 28 June of the same year, to the concert dedicated to the friar musicologist and composer in the Salle Erard of Paris; in this concert, his brother Ricard intervened, and also assisted the writer Jean Pierre Altermann, biographer of Manuel de Falla; and the mezzosoprano Jane Bathori-Engel. He collaborated with the painters Manuel Ángeles Ortiz, Hermenegildo Lanz, and his son Hernando in the decorations of the stage premier of "El retablo de maese Pedro" (191-1923) of Falla, that took place in the Polignac princess palace in Paris, on 25 June 1923.

He met Falla personally, and had correspondence with hm between the years 1920 and 1934; in his letters, they talked about personal and professional issues, like the arrival of Falla to Granada or the representations of "El retablo de maese Pedro" in Amsterdam, the days 26 and 27 of April 1926. He helped his brother Ricardo when he returned from Latin America, and sold in Paris the painting "L'Hétaïre" of Picasso, that was part of his collection. On 18 July 1936, he went to the Basque dance exhibition that the father Donostia had organised in honour of Antonia Mercé La Argentina, in San Sebastián. He passed away in 1955.