With this article I want to contribute to a more adequate explanation of institutional endurance. I argue that current explanations in the neo-institutionalist literature suffer from two problems. The first is a rational-cognitive bias coupled with an overemphasis of the role of actors. The second is the unexplained source of autonomy and externality in the definition of institutions. I propose to solve these problems by introducing an aisthetic perspective on institutional endurance. This perspective should not replace but supplement existing models and theories. The aisthetic perspective conceptualises institutions as social processes with aisthetic qualities such as harmony and rhythm. These aisthetic qualities can be felt and perceived resulting in a positive or negative experience of the institution that, in turn, promotes its reproduction (or not).